Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to communications technology and more particularly to providing multicast wireless communications services.
Description of the Related Art
In general, trends indicate that wireless video streaming delivery and wireless television broadcasting are becoming the dominant type of wireless data traffic. Increases in the demand for wireless video streaming delivery will further increase wireless traffic growth and increase the scarcity of electromagnetic spectrum. Since wireless data traffic volume is growing rapidly, electromagnetic spectrum resources are limited, and the release/allocation of new electromagnetic spectrum to wireless communications is slow, improved solutions are desired.
One technique for attempting to satisfy the growing demand for use of electromagnetic spectrum includes innovated spectrum regulation, e.g., regulatory efforts and radio access network developments in authorized/licensed shared access. Innovated network access architecture is another way to increase the electromagnetic spectrum utilization, improve spectral efficiency, reduce the broadcasting radio transmission power, and lower the noise floor in the radio frequency environment without losing service advantages. Those innovated efforts increase the efficiency of network operation and make network operation much more cost effective.
Obtaining authorization to communicate over regulated electromagnetic spectrum presents a challenge for wireless communications service development. In the United States, the Federal Communications System (FCC) allocates electromagnetic spectrum for communications originating in the United States and encourages spectrum sharing. For example, the FCC has proposed that a Time Division Duplexing (TDD) scheme coexist with other duplexing communications schemes and multi-tiered access systems for a 3.5 GHz Innovation Band. Although implementation of the proposed TDD coexistence is complicated and expensive, the spectrum needs are higher priority and justify the complexity and expense in actual communications systems. Thus, existing spectrum should be used intelligently to achieve high spectrum utilization and high spectral efficiency.